Sportsmen often wish to test fire new rifles to ensure that the rifle in question fires accurately. The recoil that is created when a rifle is fired can often cause human error and prevent accurate shooting. This additional source of error can make it difficult for the user to determine whether any misses are due to an inaccurate rifle or an inaccurate marksman. Furthermore, some sportsmen wish to set a rifle up in a hidden location to fire on wild game. These sportsmen also want to accurately fire a rifle at a predetermined location and would like to use a device to do so accurately in a repeatable manner. Also, sportsmen with disabilities that impair normal rifle use may wish to use a device to hold a rifle for them.
Several shooting rests have been created to accommodate these sportsmen. These shooting rests hold a rifle in position to steady its aim. However, many of these shooting rests have no ability to absorb recoil. As a result, when the rifle is fired, the recoil causes the rifle to bounce, which significantly affects the rifles aim and can potentially cause damage to the rifle.
Some shooting rests are built to absorb recoil. However, the recoil absorbing element of these shooting rests cannot be adjusted. Therefore, these rests prevent rifle bounce for some rifles, but not others. This is because the recoil absorbing means of these rests cannot absorb all of the recoil from rifles with heavy recoil, which causes these rifles to bounce when fired. However, if the recoil absorbing means is designed to absorb all of the recoil from a rifle with a heavy recoil, a rifle with a light recoil will not impact the recoil absorbing means enough to cause significant absorption, which in turn causes the rifle to bounce.
Additionally, these hunting rests must be secured to some stationary object to prevent the entire rest from bouncing when a rifle is fired. While many of these rests claim to be portable, they must be attached to a modified surface to prevent the rest from bouncing. This means that the rest cannot operate anywhere without a specially modified support surface being present.
Finally, many of these rests are not adjustable. This makes aiming the associated rifle difficult or impossible. Other rests claim to allow the user to aim the rifle in the rest, but aiming the rifle vertically in these rests places pressure on the rifle in a manner not intended by the rifle manufacturer. The butt stock of the rifle is designed to be placed against a persons shoulder. This puts the recoil absorbing means in contact with the entire butt stock of the rifle. The currently available shooting rests with adjustable aim place pressure on limited areas of the butt stock when the rifle is aimed at a vertical angle. This causes additional wear on the rifle's alignment and stock over time.
Therefore, what is needed is an adjustable recoil reducing shooting rest. The adjustable recoil reducing shooting rest should absorb recoil from a rifle, the recoil absorbing means should be adjustable, the rest should be securable to an unmodified support surface, and the user should be able to aim the rest and the associated rifle without placing uneven pressure on the rifle butt stock. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent when this background of the invention is read in conjunction with the subsequent detailed description of the invention, appended claims, and the accompanying drawings.